The Ferguson Recipes – Recipes, Plain & Simple
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The Ferguson Recipes – Recipes, Plain & Simple
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🌅 Recipe Of The Day! 🌇
🖨 🖨
Black Bean Soup with Toasted Cumin Seed Crema
Black Bean Soup with Toasted Cumin Seed Crema
{Serving suggestion only*}
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Rich, smoky, and deeply satisfying, this black bean soup delivers restaurant-quality flavor with three convenient cooking methods. Smoky chipotle chiles add a gentle heat while toasted cumin seed crema provides a cool, aromatic contrast that elevates every spoonful. Whether you choose stovetop, slow cooker, or Instant Pot preparation, you'll create a hearty soup that's perfect for weeknight dinners or meal prep. The partially blended texture creates the ideal consistency - thick enough to be filling yet smooth enough to feel refined. Serve with tortilla chips and extra garnishes for a customizable family meal that gets better as leftovers. - Claude
No Jump Zone
Ingredients
For the Soup
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium red onions, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tsp ground cumin
1 lb (16 oz) dried black beans
1 Tbsp chopped chipotle chiles from a can (this gives it a solid kick, dial back if you are wary)

(continued in the next column ↗️)

7 cups water
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tsp coarse kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
 
For the Toasted Cumin Seed Crema
1 Tbsp whole cumin seeds
1 cup Mexican crema or crème fraîche (or you can use sour cream or yogurt, for a close-enough taste)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions
Make the soup on the stove:
Heat olive oil in the bottom of a 5-quart or larger Dutch oven or stock pot over medium high heat.
Add onions and both bell peppers and sauté until beginning to brown, about eight minutes.
Add garlic and cumin; stir one minute.
Add beans and chipotles, then 7 cups water.
Bring to a full boil, boil for 1 minute, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer, partially cover pot, and cook until beans have softened, about 2 to 3 hours.
(These times can vary a lot depending on the age of the beans and kind of water.)
 
Make the soup in a slow-cooker:
Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.
Add onions and both bell peppers and sauté until beginning to brown, about eight minutes.
Add garlic and cumin; stir one minute.
Transfer mixture to 6-quart slow cooker.
Add beans and chipotles, then 7 cups hot water.
Cover and cook on high until beans are very tender, about 6 hours.
 
Make the soup in an Instant Pot or electric pressure cooker:
Heat olive oil in the bottom of your pressure cooker on the sauté function.
Add onions and both bell peppers and sauté until beginning to brown, about eight minutes.
Add garlic and cumin; stir one minute.
Add beans and chipotles, then 7 cups hot water.
Cover, locking lid and closing steam valve.
Cook at high pressure on the manual setting for 30 minutes.
If you have time, let the pressure release naturally.
If you do not have a lot of time, let it release naturally for 10 to 15 minutes, then manually the rest of the way.
 
While it cooks, make the topping:
Place the cumin in a small sauté pan over medium heat.
Toast until lightly golden brown.
Place in spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind until coarse.
Stir it into the cream and season with salt and pepper, to taste.
 
All cooking methods:
Transfer two cups bean mixture to blender; puree until smooth, then return the puree to remaining soup in slow cooker.
Or, you can use an immersion blender to partially blend the soup right where you have cooked it.
Stir in lime juice, salt, and pepper.
Adjust seasonings to taste; we found we needed more salt.
Ladle soup into bowls.
Spoon dollop of toasted cumin seed cream over each bowl and serve.
This soup keeps great in the fridge, and even thickens a bit.
In a good way!
Servings\Yield
Serves 6 as a main dish
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition Per Serving - Calories: 385; Total Fat: 8g (Saturated Fat: 4g); Cholesterol: 15mg; Sodium: 950mg; Total Carbohydrates: 65g (Dietary Fiber: 16g, Sugars: 8g); Protein: 18g; Calories from Fat: 72 (19%)
*Nutrition information is provided as a general estimate only. Nutrient information is not available for all ingredients, and is based on available nutrient data. Variations may occur based on ingredient brands and preparation methods.
💬 Uncle Dave says...
For the stovetop, if you want to make it faster, you can soak the beans overnight in the 7 cups of water and add salt at this point. Add the soaked beans and all the remaining water to the stock pot when you would add the unsoaked beans and water; this often reduces the simmering time to 45 minutes, but check it.
 
You might want to serve it "taco"-style for extra kid-friendliness: baked tortilla chips, sometimes pickled onions and sliced avocado garnishes and always the toasted cumin seed sour cream/creme fraiche, plus extra hot sauce.
 
You can even use the leftovers, which will have thickened a bit more in the fridge, as a topping for shredded chicken or beef tacos.
 
You can use a teaspoon or two of chipotle powder plus a dollop of tomato paste, if you do not have chipotle en adobo.
Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit with topping from Bobby Flay.
🧑‍🍳 The Cook:  Dave Ferguson 🔑 Keywords: black beans, soup, chipotle, cumin, crema
🗂️ Categories: 🌮 Mexican Food, 🥣 Soups & Stews, ⏱️ Slow Cookers, 🫕 Instant Pot
📚 Collections: Uncle Dave's Cookbook, The TFR Cookbook
Black Bean Soup with Toasted Cumin Seed Crema was added on August 09, 2025 and last updated on August 09, 2025.
*Serving suggestion only. 😂 If a food photo doesn't look like it was taken by a monkey named Frank, it was most likely AI generated and not the result of Frank's minimal culinary or photographic skills. Unless you failed the "I'm not a robot" test, your recipes will probably not look like the ones in the pictures. See Creamy Turkey Veggie Soup to read more about AI images.
📄 A Quick Note About The Recipes At The Ferguson Recipes: We love sharing recipes, but please be aware that most haven't been professionally tested in our kitchen or independantly verified. Your safety is important to us, so always practice safe food handling and cooking techniques. Cook smart and use your best judgment! Eggs: If you make a recipe that uses raw eggs, please consider using pasteurized eggs. Allergens: Food allergens have not been identified in each individual recipe. Please use caution if you have any food allergies. Have questions about a specific recipe? Feel free to reach out to us.
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When I started The Ferguson Recipes in 2006, my main goal was to create a place where I could collect and present our favorite family recipes in an orderly fashion, without all of the distractions of other recipe sites.

At The Ferguson Recipes you will find recipes, plain and simple, just like the recipe cards you have crammed into that well-worn binder of your family's most beloved recipes.

Many of the recipes included here are Ferguson family favorites passed down through the years. Many more are recipes we have gotten from friends or shamelessly "liberated" from other recipe sites. And a lot of the recipes are from recipe collections which family members have participated in creating, such as "Cooking with Carl, Hugh and your Friends", "Cooking With Cow", "The Sears Sun Cookbook", and more!

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Uncle Dave - 8/13/18 (A Palindrome Date) - Updated: 06/29/25

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📄Recipe Disclaimer: While The Ferguson Recipes strives to present reliable and delicious recipes, please note that most of the recipes on this site have not undergone rigorous testing or independent verification. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you always follow standard food safety guidelines when preparing any dish. Eggs: If you make a recipe that uses raw eggs, please consider using pasteurized eggs. Allergens: Food allergens have not been identified in each individual recipe. Please use caution if you have any food allergies. If you have any questions or concerns about a specific recipe, please feel free to contact us.
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